The Musicians

CHRIS BURN ( piano, electronics, trumpets) UK

Following education at Surrey University where he studied composition with Reginald Smith Brindle, Sebastian Forbes and Robin Maconie, Chis Burn became involved in free improvisation and a commitment to this way of working has stayed with him throughout his career. He considers all his compositional work to be informed by his experiences in this area of contemporary music making. His group Ensemble, an octet of improvising musicians whose work embraces some aspects of composition has performed at many European festivals and broadcast on radio and television. He is also known for his performances of the piano music of Henry Cowell (writing a documentary for BBC Radio 3 about Cowell’s music in 1995), John Cage and other contemporary composers, sometimes including compositions and improvisations in the same concert.

LAWRENCE CASSERLEY ( electronics, sound processing ) UK

Lawrence has devoted his professional career, as composer, conductor and performer, to real time electroacoustic music. In 1967 he became one of the first students of Electronic Music at the Royal College of Music, London, UK, on the new course taught by Tristram Cary. Later he became Professor-in-Charge of Studios and Adviser for Electroacoustic Music at the RCM, before taking early retirement in 1995.
He is best known for his work in free improvised music, particularly real-time processing of other musicians’ sound, and he has devised a special computer processing instrument for this work (picture above). He has worked with many of the finest improvisers, particularly Evan Parker, with whom he works frequently as a duo partner, in various larger groupings and in the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. He also works as a soloist, processing sounds from voice, percussion and home-made instruments. CDs have been released by ECM, Konnex, Leo Records, Psi, Sargasso and Touch.
Much of Casserley’s work has involved collaboration with other art forms, including poets, eg Bob Cobbing, and visual artists, including Colourscape artist Peter Jones. He is a Director of the Colourscape Music Festivals, presenting contemporary music in the unique environment of the Colourscape walk-in sculpture. He also collaborates with Peter Jones on sound/light installations.
Casserley’s “instrumental” approach to live computer sound processing is the hallmark of his work; the Signal Processing Instrument allows him to use physical gestures to control the processing and to direct the morphology of the sounds. This is the culmination of forty years of experience in the performance of live electronic work; his earliest live electronic pieces were performed in 1969, and he has performed many of the live electronic “classics” of the 20th century; he has also collaborated with other composers to realise their electronic performance ideas. He is noted for the breadth and variety of his collaborations, which cross styles and generations.

NINA DE HENEY ( bass) SWEDEN

Born in 1962, she grew up in Switzerland. She studied with Miroslav Vitous at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston from 1981 to 1983. She moved to Sweden in 1983, where she again studied from 1988 to 1993 at the Göteborg Conservatory of Music, where she also achieved a Soloist Diploma 2004 to 2006.
She has been free-lancing on the jazz and improvisation scene in Sweden for many years with a number of groups. She started doing solo perfomances in 1992, often working
with dancers. She founded, together with dancer Anna Westberg, the festival Dance’n Bass in May 2008.
Her first solo recording was released in 2007 and she also released a recording with the trio Acoustic Electronics with Charlotte Hug, viola, and Christian Jormin, percussion.
Her second solo recording was released in September 2009.

Adrian is active on the London club scene, playing with a wide range of musicians, as well as doing solo saxophone performances.
Recent CD releases include To The North and Nerve Cure, by The Remote Viewers with John Edwards and Mark Sanders, and a trio of duo CD’s with Adam Bohman. The Custodians Meet 8 Improvisers, with Adam Bohman and others is also about to be released, as well as a new CD from Vladimir Miller and Notes From Underground Yuri Gagarin Sang A Hymn In Space.
Adrian can also be heard playing with Roland Ramanan’s Tentet, Eardrum, The London Improvisers Orchestra, Chapology and Trip-Tik (with Catherine Pluygers and Adam Bohman). Adrian also works with North Indian musicians Hanif Khan (tabla) and Mehboob Nadeem (sitar), and Sahota Sounds – Indo-jazz fusion. In addition Adrian is active in the field of film and live music collaborations – recent projects include live performance to ‘Piccadilly’ (1926 silent film) with Steve Noble and Alison Blunt, and ‘9 Short Films by Women Film Makers’, with Trip-Tik , Vanessa Mackness & Barbera Meyer.
Recently Adrian has scored and produced the sound for 4 shorts ‘Survival in the digital age’ for The Tactical Technology Collective

THOMAS ROHRER ( rabeca) BRAZIL

Thomas Rohrer is a Swiss-born musician who has been resident in Brazil since 1995 where he has become a major figure in the counrtry’s vibrant improvised music community.
He first played violin and then studied saxophone at Lucerne University of Arts. After moving to Brazil he started playing rabeca (brazilian fiddle).
He is part of the Sao Paulo-based improvisation collective Abaetetuba. Collaborations with Panda Gianfratti, Hans Koch, Saadet Turkoz, Rob Mazurek, Javier Carmona, Marcio Mattos, Rodrigo Montoya amongst many others.
In 2011 he played with jazz legend Yusef Lateev in concert tour of Brazil.
He works frequently with film and visual artists.

JOHN RUSSELL ( guitar ) UK

A leading figure on the British free improvisation scene guitarist Russell’s involvement dates back to the early 1970’s. Since then he has worked with many of the world’s leading musicians in the field and can be heard on over 50 CDs as soloist, band leader and collaborator.
As opportunities permit, he has extended this approach to collaborate with practitioners from other spheres, i.e. poetry, composition, theatre and performance art and has broadcast on television and radio in the UK and abroad.
In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK’s longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music.
John Russell’s website http://www.john-russell.co.uk

SABU TOYOZUMI ( drums, percussion, erhu ) JAPAN

Drummer Sabu Toyozumi began his professional career in 1967 playing with the Samurais and appearing at festivals alongside rock groups such as Pink Floyd, Ten Years After and Led Zeppelin. He started working in free improvisation in 1970 and joined the AACM in Chicago in 1972. There followed a period of travel and he established his own group Sabu Unit in 1976. In 1979 he formed a duo with Kaoru Abe and from 1985 began touring in Africa, Europe, the Middle and Far East, India, Nepal, Mongolia, Korea and Burma.
Since 1987 he has worked with many European musicians in Japan including Paul Rutherford, Derek Bailey, Sonny Murray and Misha Mengelberg. In 2001 he began working in a duo with Takehisha Kosugi. He has also worked with (amongst others) Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith, Harri Sjostrom, Ute Wasserman, Lol Coxhill and Veryan Weston.

LISA ULLEN ( piano ) SWEDEN

Born Seoul Korea, grew up in the north of Sweden, now based in Stockholm . Graduated in 1986-1990 from the Royal Academy of Music , Stockholm and has also studied jazz and improvisation at Chapel Hill NC USA and electroacoustic music at EMS(Electro Accoustic Studio of Sweden)
She is active on the Swedish jazz and improvisation scene with several projects and constellations and has many international collaborations, touring in Europe and the USA.
She has recently released her second album Revolution Rock with her band; and the international trio Ullén/Mazur/Dora Trio have also released their second album Behind and Beyond on a Polish label.TRANSIDIOMATIC.
She has been supported and rewarded by the Swedish Arts Council, the Society of Swedish Composers , Swedish Arts Grant, and the Royal Musical Academy.

UTE WASSERMANN ( voice ) GERMANY

Vocal artist Ute Wassermann is a composer/performer, improviser and interpreter of contemporary music. She studied at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts with Henning Christiansen amongst others, specialising in sound installation and vocal performance, and studied classical singing with Carol Plantamura (San Diego) and Arnold van Mill (Hamburg). Since 1984 she has developed many special multivoiced vocal techniques, catalogued by register, timbre and articulational sequences, which may be deconstructed and/or superimposed and used to explore spatial resonance phenomena. She has also worked extensively with various extensions of the voice including live electronics and the use of gongs and metal coils as vocal resonators. She has given numerous performances of her own solo work and performs regularly with many improvising musicians, including duos with Richard Barrett (live electronics), Birgit Ulher (trumpet), Aleksander Kolkowski (musical saw, strohviola), Charlotte Hug (viola) in venues ranging from international festivals (Japan, Australia, Hongkong, Buenos Aires) to lofts.